Contents

September 2010

"A new survey [by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life] of Americans' knowledge of religion found that atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons outperformed Protestants and Roman Catholics in answering questions about major religions, while many respondents could not correctly give the most basic tenets of their own faiths. ... Atheists and agnostics scored highest, with an average of 21 correct answers [out of 32], while Jews and Mormons followed with about 20 accurate responses. Protestants overall averaged 16 correct answers, while Catholics followed with a score of about 15." [1]

October 2008

A re-analysis of material from the 1953 Miller–Urey experiment, in which organic compounds were synthesized from water and inorganic gases using only heat and electricity, shows that one vial contained over 4 times as many amino acids as the experimenters had originally found. This provides more support for the hypothesis that life arose from non-living precursors on the early Earth.